Volatile methane emissions from gas infrastructure in the national greenhouse gas inventory: Analysis and outlook

Methane is a climate-damaging gas that escapes into the atmosphere during the extraction, processing, storage and transport of natural gas, oil and petroleum gas, among other things. Diffuse methane emissions from the gas infrastructure are estimated in the Austrian Air Pollution Inventory (OLI) in accordance with international guidelines and reported annually to the EU and UNFCCC. In this study, the approach for the determination of methane emissions from the IPCC category 1.B.2.b (natural gas) in the OLI was discussed with industry representatives and compared with the data of various international approaches (calculation methods of other countries) and projects (EDGAR, IIASA). This enabled an assessment of the accuracy of the national methodology and identified potential for improvement.